


Returned

by Kimbali



Category: Valor Series - Tanya Huff
Genre: Developing Relationship, Displacement, Homecoming, Kraiyn, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prisoner of War, Restlessness, alien society, home planets, remembering death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 19:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10520802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimbali/pseuds/Kimbali
Summary: After their escape from the prison planet, the team of escapees split up to return to their respective homes. But for Binti, Ressk and Werst, people who have spent their entire adult lives in the Marine Corps and survived a prison that no one knew had existed, how do they try to become civilians again?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually my first time writing fanfic for AO3, so feedback appreciated :)  
> Also as far as Krai language goes, I kind of figured if jernil and jernine meant grandmother and grandfather, then logically the words for mother and father could believably be nil and nine. Any other Krai words I pretty much pulled out of my arse :)

The breeze blew in off the ocean, cooling the sweat dribbling down the side of Binti’s neck. While the bar she was working had a perfectly good in-built ventilation system to be used during less ideal weather, the bar manager preferred to keep the bifold doors along one side open to maximise the view of the ocean – tourists who spent most of their lives sitting in air-conditioned offices or grew up on climate controlled space stations didn’t come here to drink in another artificial surrounding. Binti had to admit it was a pretty sweet spot; while she’d spent plenty of time in confined spaces with other warm bodies during her life as a marine, having being trapped underground in a prison planet made her appreciate her current view all the more. This time - this job, this town - she might take longer to become bored with it.

She rubbed her ear, the latest piercing still feeling hot and tender, and wondered how the others were settling into their own lives. Of all of them, Ressk was probably most likely to find his place, or at least a decent job, tech skills being in high demand. Seemed that sniper skills didn’t transfer well into a civilian society. Who knew? _At least I’ve got enough social skills to sling drinks,_ she snorted, pouring something sickly sweet and blue at the request of a sunburned tourist. _God knows what that cranky fukker Werst is up to._ She doubted Recon skills were of any more use to civilians than sniper skills. _Probably not legal use, anyway._

From her position behind the bar she could see a watercraft out on the horizon, though she couldn’t quite make out the model. Outside in the streets, the town was preparing for some annual festival…

_“It’s the Day of the Dead festival.” The waitress she had met the night before murmured the words against her damp shoulder. “When the spirits of the dead come back to visit.”_

_Binti snorted. “It’s going to get crowded then.”_

Squinting at the distant boat, she made a mental note to let her parents know she was still ok, maybe send a vid of her current view so they might think she was actually enjoying herself. She had spent a couple of awkward weeks with them after she returned back to Earth, until a very tense dinner conversation – during which an eight-year-old nephew insisted on asking for increasingly gory details while the horrified adults at the table tried to simultaneously shut him up and force some small talk – convinced her that some distance might be better for all round.

_An instant later the Silsviss’ head exploded, spraying everyone within three or four metres with brain, bone, and blood. He stood there for a moment, headless, then slowly collapsed backwards._

She had told them that she just wanted to travel a bit. She was restless, wanted to see more of Earth, make the most of her freedom. She couldn’t tell them that their wanting to keep her close, keep her safe, felt as confining in its own way as the prison planet. Couldn’t say that she knew they were nervous of her, of what she might have become. They had seemed both worried and relieved to see her leave.

There was a crash from outside, followed by swearing in two different human languages. Apparently one of the larger festival decorations had just been dropped.

Hollice. Glicksohn. Mysho. Haysole. Aylex. Jarrett. Would her dead come visiting during the festival?

_He stood there for a moment, headless, then slowly collapsed backwards._

“I sure as fukking well hope not.” Might be better to move on soon anyway.

****

The alarm went off, and Ressk rolled over with a groan to slap it silent.

_Welcome to another glorious day in the…_

_No, wait._ Not anymore.

_Office._

The body beside him stirred as he rolled out of the bed, and he racked his brains trying to remember her name. Keedre? Kaartrir? He was sure it was something like that.

Not many female Krai chose to join the Marines. He wasn’t sure why – given the matriarchal nature of Krai society, _jernils_ held in highest esteem as the authority on family matters, he suspected usually only males were stupid enough to enlist in infantry. Last time he had been back on Kraiyn, there had been a campaign trying to encourage females to join up, with little luck.

_Moot point now, the war’s over._

Still, it was a bit of a shock to the system, seeing so many of them around.

He poked at the lump under the sheet. “Hey.”

Large golden-grey eyes blinked up at him, smiled lazily and replied “hey yourself.”

“I have to have a shower and go to work, so you’re going to have to get up.”

The smile vanished. “Just like that? Sure you don’t want me to join you in the shower?”

Ressk realised he didn’t really want that. “Uh, no, I have to get going, the boss’ll be pissed if I’m late again.”

“The boss is your dad,” she pointed out.

Ressk shrugged. “Even more reason not to antagonise him.” Even though he’d been pretty much doing that since he hit puberty.

“What about breakfast?”

“If you want to grab something from the kitchen on your way?”

“Right…” she didn’t seem too impressed with him. Ressk knew he was being a jerk, but he didn’t really intend to ever see her again. He’d just been restless and needed someone. After years of minimal privacy in the Marines, it was weird having this place to himself. Too quiet, he kept getting caught up in his own head. Not that he wasn’t attracted to females, but mostly he’d been thinking about someone else.

_I wonder if Werst is free later…_

Half an hour later, freshly showered and with whatsername gone, Ressk clipped his slate to his belt and stepped out onto the landing, relishing the feel off the shifting branches beneath his feet, breathing deeply through his facial ridges. He walked to the edge of the landing and looked down, taking comfort in the distance below him, the breeze blowing around him, the sweet smell of growing things and the dappling effect of sunlight filtered through leaves.

_This I missed._

He certainly wasn’t living at the top of the canopy – the Corps payout didn’t stretch quite that far, and he’d turned down his parents’ offer to make up the difference. But finding an affordable apartment in the branches of a real living _cymoi_ tree was nothing to sneeze at. He wondered if he should invite Werst to move into it with him, knew that this was far higher up the tree than where the older Krai had grown up.

He leapt from the landing and freefell 15 metres, before grabbing hold of one of the lines running from tree to tree, swinging himself hand over hand over foot. He dodged a _shanitri_ , the drones that buzzed from tree to tree, providing transport for those that couldn’t climb the preferred route. He dropped heavily onto a swinging walkway – earning a glare from a father struggling to control two squirming infants and a bag of groceries – and walked the rest of the way to the office.

10 minutes later he was sitting at a desk, staring at a half-wall and bored out of his mind.

Playing tech support for a business management software company. Worse, it was his father’s business management software company. Which his father intended him to eventually take over.

He huffed through his nose ridges. “I think I’d rather be shot at.” Which was why he’d joined the Marines in the first place.

After another mind-numbingly simple bit of troubleshooting – _Have you tried clearing your cache and refreshing the page? –_ he made a third trip to the staff room, using food and _sah_ as a distraction from his increasing urge to start hacking into security systems for kicks.

“Ressk! Come here and introduce yourself!”

He turned to see his _nine_  surrounded by a group of professionally dressed Krai – _probably potential investors given the way he’s oozing charm right now_ – before the older Krai grabbed him and pulled him closer, a hand gripping each shoulder preventing his escape.

“This is my boy Ressk – just rejoined us back in civilization after a stint in the Marine Corps. Spent a few years killing Others to protect the Confederation and came back a hero to work for us, so you know your business data is safe here!”

_What? That didn’t even make any fukking sense…_

As a couple of heads nodded, one looked more closely at Ressk. “You seem a little familiar…”

His _nine’s_ grin widened, almost to the point of showing teeth and he swelled in a way that reminded Ressk horribly of some officers he’d encountered. “That’s right, I told you he returned a hero? Ressk here -” a hearty slap on the back – “He escaped from that prison planet, you would have seen it on the vids. A hero of the Confederation. Those poor Marines, those good men and women, they would never have made it home if it weren’t for my boy. My son exposed the plastic alien agenda!” he grinned around at the impressed expressions and patted Ressk on the shoulder. “Now I’m sure he has work he needs to get back to, if you’ll follow me we’ll go work out the details of those contracts…”

And as Ressk stood stunned in the middle of the hallway he realised that his future working for this company was going to involve being trotted out on show every time there was someone his _nine_ needed to impress. He’d forgotten how much of an asshole his father could be at times.

_Definitely going to go for a drink with Werst…_

****

Werst slammed a fist into the sand bag, working out his frustrations from a shitty day.

He’d spent most of the morning dealing with bureaucracy - employment agencies, banks, social services, returned services league – being passed back and forth between equally uninterested staff, filling in a slew of forms, just so he can get enough cash to pay the fukking rent. The Corps payout wasn’t going to last forever.  He’d picked up a pest control job for a few weeks while their regular guy was off recovering from an injury, got the guy’s pay, plus all the _natras_ he could catch - the small mammals that chewed burrows through timber helped lighten the grocery bill a bit – but he hadn’t yet picked up any new work.

In the Corps he’d been an exemplary Marine. Here he was just another unskilled ex-grunt looking for a job.

And while he had thought that he could surely get a job in security or something, the truth was with the official end of the war, a lot of Krai were pulling out – out of the Marines, out of the Navy – and returning home looking for work.

Plus he had never been much of a people person, so he had that against him.

 _Fukked if I’m going to go into customer service or some shit and put up with serley customers with attitude._ He punched a savage pattern into the bag.

It had occurred to him that if an employer knew he was one of those that had escaped from the prison planet he might be more likely to get a job, but sure as _natras_ shit that would only be to satisfy their own curiosity. It had been bad enough going to the support group his Corps psychologist had recommended. First meeting, after being bombarded by questions and regarded with fascination, even among these people, fellow returned Marines, where always before he had felt he was a part of something bigger, he was now made to feel different. His experiences were different. He’d realised that the support sessions were ill-equipped to deal with prisoners of war.

_Why should they be? The Others don’t take fukking prisoners._

He didn’t return for a second session. The only people that understood were the ones that had been there.

Thank Turist for Ressk.

He was going to be meeting up with Ressk later this afternoon in fact, to drink, talk, maybe even….hopefully do more.

He found himself smiling, his mood brightening as he stilled the swinging bag, wiped off the sweat and started towards the gym showers.

After they’d escaped the prison planet – after the Marine Corps were done with them, after the medics and psychologists, the debriefings, the media circus, the memorial for lives lost – the escapees and Craig had gotten stinking drunk together. Then they went their separate ways.

He and Ressk had spent the next tenday in Susumi space heading back to Kraiyn.

And despite the emotional breakdowns, the nightmares and needing to sleep with a light on, he had some good memories of that tenday.

When Ressk had found him huddled on the floor, broken apart, he had wrapped himself around him and clung to him, holding him together.

When Ressk had woken trembling and sweating in the night, holding back whimpers, Werst reminded him he wasn’t alone with body warmth and hands and bites that changed the nature of the trembling and turned sounds of terror into sounds of pleasure.

At some point what had started out as desperation turned to something gentler. At least, most nights.

He was looking forward to seeing Ressk tonight. Hoped that Ressk was looking forward to it too, but Werst was still self-conscious about the - _Relationship? Could it be called that yet? -_ And not entirely certain it was going to happen. Couldn’t believe that this genius boy from the top of the _cymoi_ trees would lower himself to someone who had grown up barely off the ground, and in one of the artificially built neighbourhoods, no less. Knew that Ressk was generally more attracted to females, though even Ressk had admitted that part of the attraction was how rare they were in the Marine Corps and in the Outsector stations in general. Lying in bed, Ressk had sketched out some of his life, why he’d joined the Marines, rebelling against an overbearing family that had mapped out his career path from the moment he was born, taking control of his own life, seeking something more challenging and interesting, more fulfilling. In comparison Werst told him about being raised by a gristly but fair old _jernil,_ of street fights and childhood friends scrapping about doing odd jobs for a bit of credit.

Standing under the jet of the shower, thinking of Ressk, of what they might get up to tonight, Werst had to fight hard against the urge to do something about it, right here and now.

_Push him up against the wall right here under the shower, feeling him rubbing against me, licking the water off my shoulder and the sharp pain of teeth sinking in…_

Werst groaned and turned the water colder. 

And even when Ressk got his geek on and started talking about tech Werst was happy to listen – didn’t usually understand most of it, but he appreciated someone being an expert in their chosen field, being good at their job, and he’d seen Ressk in action on the prison planet, and he loved watching Ressk talk about something he was passionate about.

Only Ressk could make firewall security sound hot.

_Ah churrick, here’s me getting sappy in my old age…_


End file.
